May 12, 2010

Let's talk 'Lost': Mother load

For six seasons of "Lost," Mr. Watcher has sat next to me on the couch, and his views and opinions on the show always inform what I write and what I think. Sometimes we disagree (he was a lot more cool with time travel than I was, and we had many discussions in which I might as well have been Hurley and he was a very patient Faraday).

Tonight, I thought I'd let him share a couple of thoughts on the episode, which I predict could well be the most polarizing one of the seasons.

Maybe others were on board with the Ye Olde Island Times episode. Those of us in Casa Watcher were both very disappointed by "Across the Sea," and we agreed about some of the weaknesses of the episode, though there were some things that bothered me that didn't faze him much (I'll get to those later).

But here's his take on the episode:

"I want to say goodbye to the characters. I could care less where the Man in Black/Smokey came from. They could have cut this down and interspersed it with scenes of the characters we've been following for all these seasons. There just wasn't any substance to the episode. They wasted a really precious hour."

Ouch. But I have to agree. For a lot of reasons, this was not an episode that goes in the Win column. It was actually seriously disappointing, if not disheartening.

One of the biggest problems with "Across the Sea" is that it brought up many, many questions that it failed to answer in satisfying and/or compelling ways. There were elements of the mythology that were fleshed out (well, in the case of the Adam and Eve skeletons, it was the opposite). And it filled in the gaps in the history of Jacob and MIB (that's what I prefer to call the character when Titus Welliver plays him). We got partial answers to some of the questions the episode brought up.

But we also got the weirdness that was the MGC (the Magical Glowy Cave). And when it came to the biggest, most crucial questions, "Across the Sea" fumbled, and thus the hour was very unsatisfying, because those questions inform the very building blocks of the show.

We met the "mother" of MIB and Jacob, and we learned that she hated and feared the outside world. Why? Because people are bad. Why does she think people are bad? We don't really know, except that she fears that people might try to harness or interfere with the Source of the island's mysterious powers. Why does she fear that? Why would that be a bad thing?

We don't know.

We don't know what the exact powers of the Source are, where they came from, and we don't know exactly what they can do.

Hence (and this is a very important hence), we don't know whether her motivations and fears are justified or merely an expression of unfounded paranoia (and boy, the island seems to attract more than its share of freaky, fearful, misanthropic mothers, doesn't it? Sigh.)

Yes, people came along and tried to harness or use the island after her time. Way after her time. What made her think that people trying to do that in her era would be bad?

We don't know.

Is the island's energy bad? We simply don't know. And I'm not saying it has to be a black and white (ha!) issue. But the fact is, the island has healed people. Why is it so terrible to study or get to know the Source? Why does the Source affect the world? We simply don't know.

This is important -- the fact that we don't know whether what she is guarding is a force for good or evil or why she has the fears she has. Hence we can't know if she was right to kill the twins' mother, if she was right to lie to her boys, if she was right to attack her own son, if she was right to (presumably) murder an entire village. A few hours before it ends, "Lost" introduces a character whose motivations and priorities only become more muddied over the course of the single episode in which she appears.

The fact is, we didn't get the kind of context that would allow us to decide whether the things she did to defend the island and the Source were justifiable or not. So, weeks before the show is going to end for good, why introduce her if we aren't really going to find out anything profound or informative about her or her history with the island and/or humanity?

"Every question I answer will lead to another question," she told the unfortunate Claudia. Well, yes. One of the most frustrating things about "Across the Sea" is that it brought up many foundational questions about the boys' mother and just left them hanging. There were hints and allusions, but, in many cases, a lack of real answers. As usual, direct questions got evasive answers.

A lot of what she said was basically the island version of, "Because I said so."

Then again, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that centuries of island conflict stem, in a fairly reductive and predictable way, from mommy issues. Well, that's just great. We've had so many characters wrestle with daddy issues over the years, but the Big Kahuna? The big problem at the root of the whole cycle of violence and pain? "Mom liked you better!"

Just kill me now.

In all seriousness, here are just a few of the questions I have about dear old island mom and the Source, which presumably will never be answered more robustly than they were here:

Where did she come from? How does she know the people who landed on the island are bad? Why is she so convinced that people in general are bad? Was she a smoke monster herself? Why lie and say only the island exists? Why did she want to die? Had she gone into the Source's light and felt the pain that was "worse than death? How was Jacob "like [her]" once he drank the wine? What's the Source? Why can't it ever be used or harvested?

And last but not least, how did she feed two newborn infants? And how did she keep them from noticing the village on the island for 13 years? Oy. It's really not a good sign when basic issues of logic are simply ignored.

What we do know is that she passed down -- or tried to pass down -- her misanthropic beliefs to her sons. MIB, despite rebelling and mixing with the settlers for years, shared her negative view of humanity. Yet Jacob, who loyally stuck by her, wanted to believe people were capable of better, perhaps having grown tired of mom's narrow worldview.

Whoever she was, whatever she became after she arrived on the island, she planted the seeds of the conflict that sucked in the Lostaways so many years later. The conflict certainly didn't lack for Biblical elements. Jacob was the Chosen One, while MIB (who still remains nameless, which is pretty frustrating at this point) was the rebellious prodigal son, determined to prove his parent wrong yet turning out much more like that parent than he ever thought he would be.

Resentment is what drives these two men, along with jealousy, frustration and sibling rivalry, and despite the passage of centuries, their conflicts are still going strong. At some point, I just wanted to tell Jacob and MIB to get over themselves. Perhaps the island conflict will be settled when they can finally work through all their issues.

But at this point, not even a round-the-clock team of ace shrinks could repair this relationship, it would seem. Mom's guilt trips, lies and paranoia did a number on both boys and the choices they made as a result were catastrophic.

Not exactly something to celebrate with mom over a glass of uncorked wine.

Now, on to the things that bothered me more than Mr. Watcher.

Every week I look at Metacritic's roundup of "Lost" reviews from a variety of critics and bloggers, and every week, I notice that I'm usually one of perhaps two female writers in that roundup. There are a lot of other smart women writing about "Lost" who aren't on Metacritic's list, but it strikes me that, as a TV critic, I'm bringing something different and somewhat unusual to the table -- I'm a lady (I'll say it for you -- that's no lady, that's Mo Ryan!).

So, what follows might be an issue for you, or it might not. If it doesn't ring true for you, whether you're male or female, I get it. But I have to be clear about just why this episode was such a profound letdown for me.

I know, I know, I've complained all season about the fact that the women's storylines have been consistently weak and relatively unimportant, especially contrasted with the epic, important and even cataclysmic journeys of the male characters. But this episode just made things worse.

"Lost" started out in Season 1 as an ethnically diverse show with a lot of potentially intriguing male and female characters. Now it is, to a large degree, a story about the epic, heroic or anti-heroic journeys of a bunch of white men. Non-white or female characters -- with a few exceptions -- just aren't in the foreground of the main narrative most of the time. Given that, when the show began, I thought that "Lost" was going to be different in that regard, it's disappointing.

This season has had some strengths, but the stories for women aren't among them. And we finally got a female character who was tied into an epic, mythologically important story line -- and it's all about how her bitterness, misanthropy and evasions launched centuries of bloodshed. Fabulous.

After watching "Across the Sea" twice, it sure seemed to me that if it hadn't been for "Eve's" mistakes, perhaps the garden of Eden and the Source wouldn't have been ruined or endangered, and perhaps her sons wouldn't have gone to war. She tempted them with the knowledge of the Cave of Mystical Glowy Secrets, and an endless battle for supremacy began.

As I said, we don't even know if she was well-intentioned or not, though it's clear that she didn't want her sons to suffer. But the fact is, a woman is at the heart of what first went wrong on the island. After years of putting up with lame Kate episodes, loony or smothering mothers and the killing off of great female characters like Juliet, the reward we get for our patience is ... this? To say it was demoralizing is putting it mildly.

At least now we know for sure that "Lost" isn't just the Island of Bad Dads -- in fact, maybe the series of terrible fathers are looking better in contrast to the twins' Mom.

I guess this is how "Lost" celebrates Mother's Day. Maybe candy would be better next time.

At least there is something amusing about "Lost's" female trouble (and let me be clear, not every lady-related thing on "Lost" has been a disappointment. I just had higher hopes for the show, hopes that Season 6 is most certainly not fulfilling in this regard).

But I must note the one thing I consistently find amusing about "Lost" -- the number of caves, tunnels, wells, towers and mystical crevices we've seen over the years. So the mother guards the Mystical Glowy Cave, which is full of secrets and pleasures and pains that the boys should not touch. Paging Dr. Freud!

But we should spend a second on the Mystical Glowy Cave (MGC). The appearance of that was… well, very weird. On a scale of one to 10, it was about a 20 on the "What the heck?" scale, if you ask me. I think the show took one of the hardest right turns it's ever taken toward the mystical and fantastical with depiction of that cave, which, honestly, looked like something out of a movie you'd catch on Syfy.

As executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have said many times, providing answers can be inherently less interesting than exploring questions. And this was one of those times the answer was just … odd. The MGC not only looked odd, it didn't really tell us much that we didn't already know. We knew the island had a massive source of energy and tapping into it could be dangerous. So we finally got to see the Source of all that energy or mystical hoo-hah, and all I kept thinking was that Aslan or Gandalf was going to turn up any minute.

And when Jacob hit MIB in the head with a rock and sent him into the Mystical Cave that Boys Are Not Supposed to Explore, all I kept thinking was, "This is the worst flume ride ever!"

To conclude, I'll just concede that it's hard to draw the line with a show like "Lost" -- Cuse and Lindelof have said that they certainly don't want to emulate the "Star Wars" prequels and answer so many questions that the central mysteries of the story are de-mystified in a demoralizing way. But fans want answers, and some want more than others. It's a hard line to walk, and people will always disagree about whether they explained too much or too little.

But "Across the Sea" brought up some questions I didn't have before and it failed to answer them in a way that made up for the fact that it was depriving me of more Desmond, more Penny, more Sawyer, more Locke, more of the characters the show has made me love over the course of the past six years. There's a fair amount that I learned that I didn't really need to know, there were a few answers I wasn't all that curious to get and now I have more questions about certain things than I did before. It just didn't work for me (and I recommend you read this post by James Poniewozik, who writes really well about why he didn't find this episode particularly necessary or dramatically interesting).

OK, I should probably stop writing before I turn off the two remaining readers with all my bellyaching. So my short Hail of Bullets will include a few more questions -- maybe you figured all this stuff out, because I sure didn't:

Why is it that MIB/Smockey can never leave the island? Maybe we'll learn that in the next 3.5 hours (which is all that's left of "Lost"). Did Mom know something about his future -- that he'd turn into Smockey and thus would never be able to depart? But Mom, haven't you learned? Don't tell him what he can't do!

If Jacob and MIB were able to work through all their issues -- which are formidable, let's face it -- would a different set of desires emerge for both men? I got the impression that MIB's desire to leave was driven more by his disappointment in his mother than by a true desire to experience more of the wonderful world of humanity. (By the way, how would he figure out where "home" was? Did he find out where the shipwrecked folks were from?) And it would appear that Jacob can leave the island any time. Wonder how he does that and yet also protects the island and the Source. He's a busy guy, I guess, and used to multi-tasking.

Presumably the young boys we've seen in the jungle on "Lost" are young MIB and Jacob, but why are they appearing to various characters at random times? Hmmm.... I'm sure you all have much better guesses about this than I could come up with.

I have to acknowledge that Allison Janney did as well with this character as anyone could have. The failings of island mom certainly can't be laid at her feet.

The picture of the cavemen dudes here -- I'm sorry, but it makes me sigh and giggle at the same time. I constantly giggled at the garb of the guards at the Temple and now I dub anything silly or goofy on "Lost" a "Turban Tim Time" moment. Well, meet Turban Tim's cousin: Stoneage Steve. Really, "Lost"? We got Stoneage Steve instead of more Desmond or Penny or Locke or Ben or anything?

ONE WARNING: Whatever you think of the episode or whatever you think of my impressions of it, a reminder: Be civil in comments. Please, let's keep the tone polite and respectful. I think it's worth quoting from Alan Sepinwall's Rules for Commenting: "This is an opinion blog, and a place where people
can and should argue passionately for their point of view. But there's a
difference between arguing with passion and arguing with hostility. If
you can't find a way to express your viewpoint without insulting other
commenters, or getting strident and self-righteous -- say, equating your
opinion with fact, and deriding other people for not seeing the truth
of your words -- then either tone down your words until they're more
respectful to other people, or don't comment."

ONE REMINDER: Do not, under any circumstances, refer to any previews or spoilers for next week's episode. Thanks.

APPARENTLY I WASN'T CLEAR ENOUGH, so let me say this again. Your comment will not be posted unless it is calm, rational and does not attack anyone in a malicious or unpleasant way. You can express any opinion you like as long as you do so in a civil and polite manner.

All comments will be reviewed before they are posted. If you can't restrain yourselves and conduct a rational discussion (and some of you have - thank you for that), comments will be shut down.

This is your only warning.

Comments will be shut down without warning unless people can behave themselves.

I love you Mo. I think every week you channel everything I fee, about Lost into your post, and you do it more coherently than I ever could. This episode was as baffling as it was terrible and disappointing. Even if the next 3.5 hours are incredible, it'll be very difficult to remove the bad taste of terrible storytelling and bad characterization that the latest seasons Of this once loved show has brought.

For a while, I thought I was watching an episode of the syndicated 'Beastmaster' show from several years ago! But I want to be nice about this episode. I do. It's kind of like a clip show, but with new clips. It's better that these mundane answers are given now, rather than waste precious finale time, I suppose. They have yet to explain how Jacob can globetrot, and why exactly Mother didn't want Smokey to do the same.

And really? They still haven't given Smokey a name, other than "Brother"? Mother...Brother... What is this, The Berenstain Bears? :-)

In any case, I guess since the light from the cave went away (?) at the end, that's why that room got all frozen for the donkey wheel. They might explain who installed the wheel, but then again, is it even worth the time to do so?

At least 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' got Jacob and Brother to play a game of Connect Four Million. That was...cute.

Personally, the mother's motivation in "Across the Sea" to keep her family from harm, to be distanced from evil, to protect "the good" by isolation reminded me of M. Night Shyamalan's movie "The Village." Love or hate that flick, it took on some of the same ideas, minus a "Mystical Cave." Of course, things turned out pretty damn badly there, too.

In their song "Across the Sea," Weezer sings "You see mom, I'm a good little boy/It's all your fault, momma./It's all your fault." Whatever legitimate beefs one has with this episode, it definitely made me look at the current situation in a whole new light.

Thank you, Mo.
I felt validated reading your thoughts re: minorities and women on Lost.
In live conversations and on some forums, I never could share my disappointments without being ridiculed or my feelings minimized by other fans.

Sorry to partly disagree. I loved the episode. It was imperfect but maybe also one of the most intellectually challenging. This is an episode that will gain better in time.

Regarding the white men issue - please drop this politically correctness non-sense. Who cares if a character is black, man, asian, jewish, or a woman. This is a character. Ths kind of attitude, judging characters by their ethnic origins, is just silly and, imo, dangerous.

The real problem: Tonight, in the Sideways Universe, a truly great episode of LOST aired ... one with Charlie and Kate undertaking a doomed mission to rescue a trapped Desmond from a forgotten Dharma station, while Locke's triumphant return to his own body (!) was met with skepticism by Juliet and Jack... ;)

Yeah, yeah, this episode wasn't necessary, but it's certainly more than a little tolerable if not viewed through the prism of "OMG there's only ___ hours of LOST left!!!" that is perhaps raising our expectations too high for many of these final episodes. Let's re-adjust a bit, and trust that if Carlton and Damon (the writers of this episode and the show-runners, after all) thought that this chapter in the saga deserved to be told, then it needed to be told for a reason. (I hope!)

Of course, I reserve the right to revist this comment, come 5/24/10...

One other note: Mo, you rock, as usual, and I confess to "middle aged white guy bias" when it comes to not seeing some of the women's storyline issues you've identified. You are right; I would only point out that it has always struck me that a fair amount of the producing team (writers and other behind the scenes producers) on the show are women. Of course, we're not there, and we don't know what conversations are or aren't held about these topics; I hope that after their post-finale period of "radio silence," Darlton will address some of these quite valid concerns.

"Regarding the white men issue - please drop this politically correctness non-sense. Who cares if a character is black, man, asian, jewish, or a woman. This is a character. Ths kind of attitude, judging characters by their ethnic origins, is just silly and, imo, dangerous."

Ben, they're "characters" ... and which ones "advance" in the story and which ones become monster food or get shoved to the back of the narrative is a CHOICE. You think Desmond, Jack, Locke, Ben, and Jacob are inherently the most important characters? No way, those were choices made by writers for potentially wrong reasons. Heck, even making those characters male was a choice. Don't dismiss the complaint as PC nonsense when the other justification isn't reasonable given the whole thrust has been made up, remade, and made again over the past few seasons.

With Sun gone, the chances of a woman of color ascending to the pantheon of "central protagonist" are essentially dead and the men of color have definitely dwindled/lost focus (Hurley being the exception and Miles a potential, but unlikely, foil). The female character still at the center of the island's story (Kate) is the one most defined by men's choices. I've always found it strange that Kate was able to commit murder and kidnap a child, carrying the guise of a powerful female archetype, yet her character's actual behavior is so submissive. Again, a choice by the writers.

Sadly, I bet these choices have been fueled by the preferences of audiences ... which may point to disappointing biases in the audience (a preference for white male characters) rather than in the writers (who began the show earnestly trying to portray a wide array of characters and perspectives [and continued to do so through at least two entire seasons]).

Yes, yes, yes! Thank you, Mo, for articulating all the reasons I found this episode so disappointing. They took two very compelling, layered, deliciously ambiguous and mysterious characters (Jacob and MIB) and made them, of all things, trite. So many things that happened in this episode were trite and predictable - based on storytelling cliches. And the glowy cave? I have a bad feeling it might lead to the spiritual goo that made the Battlestar Galactica finale quite disappointing for me.

And thank you for writing about the gradual lack of compelling storylines for the female and minority characters. To commenter benj: As a minority female, I do care whether a character is black, man, Asian, Jewish or woman. Foremost, I want a well-written character in a well-written show. But it also means a lot to me to have a well-written character who is someone I could identify with, see possibilites for myself, see that I am visible and represented in popular culture and thus society, and that my narratives matter.

I think this is a very brave thing to do, an episode featuring no main cast. I happen to find it very enjoyable. LOST gives its viewer erection by introducing mystery. But near the end, it has to answer. Nobody like answers because it can never be as good as when you didn't know. Like how monster in the horror movies are never as scary as you thought it would be when you only see the shadow.

I like how the good and bad thing is not clear. I love how Jacob is jealous of MIB and think his mother loves his brother more. Kind of like someone... oh I don't know, Ben?

I too am a woman, a Lost loving woman, and I have no problem with the way the show has depicted my gender. I don't watch television hoping it will be politically correct, I watch it in the hopes of being entertained and sometimes, experiencing something profound. Lost has always done both for me. And sure, this week wasn't its best episode, but look - now we've got some back story for Smokey - now maybe we will feel something for him during this final 3 and a half hours.

But really, what I think is interesting is you jumping to the conclusion that the Mother was bitter & misanthropic. She could be those. Or she could be...right. Like, actually right. The show obviously left it deliberately vague what her motivations were. Sure, she could be crazy, but also, she could be the smartest effing person on that damn island. We don't know.

I'm choosing to believe that to a certain degree at least, she IS right, that what Locke fought for so long, what is Jack is fighting for now, to stay on the island and protect it, IS important. It's playing with the classic tropes of the garden of eden, the fountain of youth, any mystical place that exists within nature that must be guarded, must not be corrupted. But I also think the show will turn this idea on its head. There is more to the story. We won't really be able to judge what answers we did get or didn't get (for the record, if the show answered all the questions you have, it would have REALLY gone overboard) until the end, so I think we should all collectively chill out.

Muse out!

(PS Nothing in this comment is meant to be taken personally! You rock, Mo!)

The episode was horrible. This review of it was even worse. The lack of minority and female story lines is where you want to go? Really? Sorry, the most compelling actors on the show are Linus, Locke and Sawyer. By far. Jack would be 4th. Kate is boring, Juliet was boring, Jin and Sun were boring. Sayid was cool. And Hurley's ok. Mr. Eko was an interesting character. He quit. Nothing they could do about that.

I liked the episode a lot. Or at least, I liked the ep a lot after rewatching. The first time through... eh. But I disagree with people who think it's a filler ep, or a breather, or just Darlton waving their hands and saying "Hey, look! Answers!" I think points raised in the ep will be massively important to the finale.

Responding to a couple of your points, Mo:

Everyone has seen ghosts around the Island, even excluding the Man in Black taking on other people's forms, so the characters seeing young!Jacob (and it's only Jacob) is pretty consistent with Island phenomenon. In fact, it's so simple that I'm surprised we didn't pick up on it before, instead of all these "OMG! Jacob is regenerating!" theories.

I don't think what we saw of the Source/Light--namely, it coming out of an opening in a small cave--was too much or too cheesy. Or at least, no more cheesy than the same light come out of a hole in a wall behind a giant wheel.

And finally, I think the point of the episode was to again draw into question everyone's motives and what they've told the characters. Compare what we learn about the Island and it's protector's purpose in Across The Sea ("We must protect the Light") to what we learn in Ab Aeterno ("We must contain the evil"). Which is it? Or is it both? Or did Jacob learn something in the time between the two stories?

I am not American. Let's start with that. So I can't even start to understand your weird issue with race. By the way I am not exactly a European white male being a Middle-Eastern Jew. I just don't care if someone is white or black. I care if the character is good or not, if the actor delivers the part, is the scenario is well written.
I seriously hope that the writers of Lost don't write things with the gender or race issue in mind. That's the best way to make bad writing. "Let's give some importance to this character because she is a black woman and we need to have more black women". Well, no they don't. By the way, Rose is one of my favorite character in Lost - but because of the actress and the writing, not because she is a woman, not because she is black.
Seeing people through what they are ethnically or their gender is just racism. Maybe good-minded racism, but racism nevertheless.

Well said, benji. I think this Mo chick forgot Richard Alpert is Cuban, Jugo is Mexican, Miiles, Jin and Sun are Asian and Sayid is of Middle Eastern descent. Those are characters who got a lot of attention this season. Even Kate had an entire episode dedicated to her, which was terrible. And weren't Sun, Jin and Sayid the big stories from last week's episode? I don't get it. I've been disappointed by the lack of Ben Linus this season. Perhaps LOST is being racist against bug-eyed short white men. Locke, Sawyer and Linus are, in my opinion, and in the opinions of mostly everyone I know, the 3 most charismatic actors, not just characters, on the show. They are all absolutely perfect for their roles and I couldn't see anyone else of any race or gender filling them and doing as good a job. Just watch the show to be entertained, not to see a UN-type representation. Was there outcry because The Wire featured mostly black actors? Or because The Sopranos featured mostly Italians? Some losers see race and gender in everything. I feel sorry for them.

I disagree completely. I feel like you are focusing on stuff that's completely irrelevant for example why should it matter how she has been feeding the kids as infants? There are many ways that's possible... we have scene cows on the island which would be a source of milk, similarly she could have fed them stuff like mashed bananas etc. The point is why is something like that even worthy of being addressed on the show?

What the show was trying to say is much more nuanced and deft than what you made it out to be in the review. Statements like this "woman is at the heart of what first went wrong on the island" are just oversimplifying what happened in the episode to the nth degree. It ignores the comment the show was trying to make about human curiosity and human desire for "answers" to why we are here, as a possible contributing force to the conflict. Not only that it is also letting the parties involved get away with their actions scot free, while on some level the mother may have played a role in the conflict but ultimately it was the selfish and vengeful actions of Jacob and MiB that are responsible for what transpired on the island. Laying the blame on the mother for the upbrining she gave her kids as a source of the actions of the kids does not work for me. Saying that "woman is at the heart of what first went wrong on the island" is like saying that Israel-Palestine conflict is "The fault of the Arabs" or "The fault of the Jews". It is oversimplifying what is an extremely complex cocktail of events and motivations with many moving parts.

I thought the show made it pretty clear why the mom believes that people are bad with line she has in the beginning of episode where she echoes MiB speech in 'The Incident'. She has been on the island for a very long time and has seen the behavior of people who have lore she has to protect it. I dunno, I usually agree with your reviews but here I seem to disagree point by point. Maybe I was just in a different frame of mind while watching the episode.

@benj
You summed up exactly what I was thinking. Not once during this episode(or any episode...of any show) did I once think something was done because of race of gender. The thought never crossed my mind, and it baffles me how the people who come up with this crap don't realize that it's they themselves that are being racist and sexist by looking for it in the first place. I'm American and I don't understand it either.

Now for the episode...

Lot of subtext in last nights episode. Funny how Jacob and MiB's mother's plan was raising these children to make one jealous of the other so that the jealous one would kill her while the favored one took her place. Not even she saw it coming that it would end up being the jealous one who would carry the torch. Not quite the way she planned...but at least she found her loophole.

I think Mo, like many reviewers, is being too harsh because some confusion surrounding the episode. When I was watching, a lot of the mythology was being connected. The Lost writers didn't outright explain everything, but with a reasonable certainty I'm sure of a few things.

First off, drinking the "wine" is what gives you the ability to not age. That's what the mother meant when she told Jacob, "Now you're like me," (as in you won't age Jacob). This is the same wine that Jacob shared with Richard after Richard wished to live forever.

Secondly, the mother was a smoke monster herself. She was the one that destroyed the village and she was only able to do so as smokie. Remember the writing in the hatch, Cerberus - the island security system? Going into the light cave transformed her into a smoke monster so she could protect the island from explorers who were going to destroy the island's energy.

The final connection involved the smoke monster's death. The mother (smokie) was stabbed in the heart before she could even say a word. Therefore it was significant when Flocke said "Hello Sayid" before being stabbed. In order to kill the smoke monster you have to use the infamous dagger and stab it through the heart before MiB talks. Sayid shouldn't have let Flocke talk before stabbing him.

I agree that this is a polarizing episode. I'm not going to get caught up in the "under represented minority in television" debate. As a person of minority myself, I never felt they were selectively telling the story of only "old white men." What I did feel was that the audience may not like unexplained mythology and rules. Also, like Bronzethumb said, it's frustrating knowing whom to support because the line between "good" and "evil" is blurred and unexplained. Personally I think that has been the character of the show and that's why I enjoyed this episode.

What I don't get is that despite this episode being hellishly bad, people seemed to champion "Ab Aeterno", which was the same thing we saw last night, but with the present action serving as book ends to the story. Why do I say that? Well after reading Mo's article, then James Poniewozik's article, it is clear. Both articles stated that we didn't need to know half of the stuff that was revealed last night. But we needed to know how Richard Alpert got to the Island and how he is over 100 years old? Really?

Some of the questions that are "answered" in LOST tend to be answered way before their onscreen confirmations by the context clues that we, the fans, have already (hopefully) put together by using snippets of dialogue or character actions, logic and Poniewozic's hilarious 'explanation tool' - "the wizard did it". Yet, when you go to LOST websites that list theories, the 'answers' are still posed as 'questions' even though the answers are technically there if you look for them. Why?

We don't know.

So while I agree that "Across The Sea" is a bad use of an hour in the final season of the show, all I can say is that we asked for what we got and they delivered, but this is more like a second helping rather than the first bite of a bad dinner. Let's hope the finale doesn't serve as this dinner's desert.

I strongly disagree with you, Mo... I loved this episode. I've been given enough answers and in the same time I feel free making my own conclusions. That's what Lost has been about so far, isn't it? It's a mythology after all, we don't need many answers.

I believe that mother simply had believed what she was told about the island, just as Jacob believed what his mother told him, without asking many questions. They are believers just like Lock was used to be and like jack begins to be. Jacob has always been a man of faith, when MIB was a man of science.

Very, very disappointed. For the first time ever with the show. And so late in the game too.

The bottom line is this episode failed to answer to some of the BIG questions that have been six years in the making and brought up new ones about new characters that will never been seen again for which there is no investment in at all.

THANK YOU for ripping this episode - your criticism is right on, and I loved the flume ride quip. The kid actors in the first half were terrible, Welliver and Pellegrino redeemed the quality in the second half.

I agree that the show has given short shrift to female characters and minorities, and considering where they started from it is a shame.

I was disappointed with the episode because, knowing it was about Jacob & MIB, I really expected some clear-cut answers and I'm disappointed that it left so much unanswered. I wouldn't mind if there were 12 episodes left; in that case I would have liked it fine. But (along with Darlton's comments outside the show) the episode leads me to believe that this is all we're getting, folks.

Also I see that is is definitely time to switch from science fiction to pure fantasy mode, where things are explained as magic and nothing more.

Oh, also wanted to say...what was your thing about turbans? (Didn't read it, I'm going by what you said here.) A large percent of the world population wears turbans, it's just a fact. And if the Temple Others represented people from all over the world, it just makes sense that some would wear turbans. That's comical??

And finally...what the heck do you mean cave men? If you had called them refugees from an episode of Xena, I would agree; that's what their garb reminded me of. But cave men? Huh?? They weren't wearing bear skins or carrying clubs, nor were they all that shaggy. And since both Mom and RealMom spoke Latin, it was way past the era of cave men.

Mo here: I certainly don't have anything against turbans. I just think that the way that the show costumed the Temple guards was ... not good.

Mother "Load" is correct, Mo... This episode was a total load. Of [expletive]. I've loved this show from the beginning, and I defended it vigorously on this same blog when others complained back in season 3, but I can't defend this garbage we saw last night. Welliver and Pelligrino were excellent, but even they seemed a bit, ahem, LOST about the lines they had to deliver. The kids were fine I guess, and Ms. Janney seemed horribly miscast.

Nothing about "The Rules" and who created them or how, nothing about Jacob's magic powers (and now we find the fake mom had them too, maybe? Plus where the hell did SHE come from)? Nothing about the people MIB wanted to join, no explanation given why Mom wouldn't let MIB leave (this "ultimate evil" seems downright sympathetic now), and we still don't know who put the damned donkey wheel in place or how it works.

Oh... Just sticking it in some cavern wall will cause water and light to let you leave? I realize the episode took lace hundreds, maybe thousands, of years ago (they never even told us that much... When did it take place?) but I wanted some actual science (or pseudo-science) behind this. "Mom" makes it so they can never hurt each other? Huh. But Jacob can beat the snot out of MIB, and then KILL him? MIB can't leave, but we know that Jacob later left and recruited people. What's with all these contradictions? I can't imagine this will all make sense over the final two episodes.

Hell, if MIB (tired of typing that... Still no name???) isn't really Smokey, then who/what is the freakin' monster? was it somehow the Mom? How else could she kill the whole damned village?

Finally, that stupid magic cave... I was waiting for a unicorn to come prancing out and fart a rainbow. What the hell was that? The show has definitely gone from sci-fi to pure fantasy... Perhaps pixie dust is the answer to everything. This may have been the worst episode of the series. Certainly the most disappointing. I hope the final two can redeem this.

Mo here: Actually, unicorn tears are answer to everything. I thought that was clear. ;)

I'm confused. Half the people who hated this episode are saying they hated it because it didn't answer enough questions. and the other half is saying that the answers were unecessary and too much was explained. Which one is it? Atleast you can appreciate how hard job Darlton have to thread the needle?

I am disappointed at how immature people are being in this thread. If you disagree do so respectfully. You are going to get banned. I hope that makes you happy.

Extremely disappointing on almost every level. How did the writers of Lost suddenly become so clumsy regarding a basic thing like motivation? They've always been so good at communicating what characters want. But this? Why does MIB have such a burning desire to leave the island? Why does Mommy CJ turn so easily to violence?
Bad dialogue, clumsy structure, and an underlying power that would have seemed cheesy in an 80's fantasy novel (David Eddings, say). This was a poorly made piece of television. Not my least favorite episode ever (can anyone remember 'Stranger in a Strange Land' without shuddering?), but given its importance to the underpinnings of the whole lostverse probably the biggest letdown. This is one case where it probably would have been better to tell, not show...
A historical episode that ignores most of the main cast can be great if it is done well (Ab Aeterno). This was not done well. As a delivery of some information it worked, and I know that's what some fans want above all (and that's fine). As art, it blew.
Ah well. One to skip over when the DVD comes out.

"Oy. It's really not a good sign when basic issues of logic are simply ignored."

This was when I stopped reading.

Let's see, we've had polar bears in the tropics, time travel, a guy moved the island by turning a donkey wheel, an odd smoke monster who needed to find a loop hole in order to kill his otherwise imortal brother, and two plane crashes to the same island. Let's not forget the numerous dead people walking around, a guy who gets out of his wheel chair after one of those plane crashes, and a woman who's been cured of her cancer. And NOW is when you decide the show is bad because of logic?

I tought it was a great episode. But then, every time I really like an episode, I know you won't. And every time I think an episode is, eh, I know you'll love it. So I shouldn't be surprised that you thought this was bad.

Wow! Why do you even watch the show? I believe you will find that over the last episodes, last nights show laid the critical groundwork for the shows revelation. Indeed, there may be additional questions that have arose that will not be answered. As a fan, I enjoyed and appreciated the writers work in this episode.

With so little time left, they devote an hour to this? I have a feeling I will wake up from a drunken stupor on May 24 only to find there are bullet holes in my TV screen from my rage the night before. Go along for the ride Darlton are taking us until the finale? Yeah, they're taking us for a ride.
Despite them telling us that not all questions will be answered (like Allison Janney alluded to last night), there are some questions that should be/have been answered. I think [the finale] will be very disappointing, and the only questions answered in [the May 18 episode] are that Darlton didn't know what else to do with those characters.
I'm not glad I am new to this party (just started watching this year) because it sounds like the past 5 seasons were a lot better written and more interesting plots than a season that is supposed to wrap everything up.

Thank you Mo for expressing my exact thoughts about last night's episode.

Look, we got "answers" but we wanted EXPLANATIONS. We are watching a mystery show; so we want relevant, logical explanations that we can use to determine the meaning of the answers.

Once again, we get screwed with the endings of great mysteries, a la The Prisoner (original). Sounds good, but if you can't conjure a way to make sense out of your imagery by the ending, you've blown it.

If LOST was a David Lynch picture, not making sense would make sense.

But it's not.

Keep up the wonderful work, Mo. And thumbs up to these great posts here.

Now we know, Damon et. al. are "BSG'ing" the finale. Very disappointing.

The golden light is part of every person? Like a "well of souls"? Chalker's or the Temple Mount's - you pick. Ouch!

After building a fairly interesting dynamic within a wide spanning mythos - faith v. science, blind trust v. pragmatism, quantum reality v. spiritual reality, etc. - this is what we get? A cave of light on a mysterious island, tended by a murdering Greek Oracle mashed up with Cain/Abel and the kitchen sink.

I liked watching MiB, Jacob, his mother, the Others casting about looking for "the source" and could almost see it fitting into the storyline as supporting material if presented late last season (fodder for that season' finale) or early this season. Given time, the writers could have integrated this almost orthogonal piece (like the other sideways efforts) into a coherent, internally consistent (if not logical) finale.

I think the funniest moment for me was towards the end when Jacob plants the stones by the bodies of his mother and brother, AND THEN we immediately flash black to the season where their remains are discovered. It certainly seemed like the writers went out of their way to demonstrate how they were tying up a loose end since they have been taking a beating amongst the fans about not doing enough to illuminate the mythology. You could almost hear them saying, "See! A PAYOFF! We planted this years ago! We had a plan all along!" Unfortunately, it's a loose end I don't give two...figs...about.

I agree with you Mo about this being a hugely disappointing episode. The writers continue to create more questions which is a huge "[expletive] you" to the fans who remain loyal. Let me say that I do not require spoon feeding. That's one of the great strengths of this show: it requires you to be fully engaged. But an audience has an expectation of resolution. Why are "well made" plays satisfying? Because the audience is privy to the circumstances of the protagonist's plight. We, as an audience, understand the character's motivation and feel pathos at the climax of the story. Season six of Lost has done little to address the overarching motivation behind the island and the people charged with protecting it. I can live without answers about polar bears and magic boxes but to not understand what motivated the ENTIRE PREMISE of the show seems a colossal mistake on the part of the producers and creative team.

One thing I did find interesting, however, was MIB going into the light cave, thus releasing the smoke monster. Jacob's brother (MIB) was killed as a result of that act (his skeleton was discovered in the cave by Jack and Kate) so every scene that we have seen previously is smoke monster taking on the form of Jacob's dead brother; that means that the smoke monster is it's own defined entity. So the scene on the beach between Jacob and MIB at the beginning of last season was not his brother but the smoke monster saying he would figure out a way to kill him. It is still up for debate whether it is good or evil (or something else entirely) but clearly Jacob's role changed from protecting the source to containing the embodiment of that source. That becomes Jacob's penance in some way for killing the MIB.

I liked this episode. The more I hear people rail against the glowing cave, the more I like it too. I don't think the imagery of the cave with light and water entering it was too cheesy for this show and I agree with Todd VanDerWerff's review from today that people's expectations are too high. Which is something you warned about in a recent podcast yourself Mo.
I think that the explanation for the light and the cave made sense in both the spiritual and scientific sense that the show has straddled since the early seasons. We know that in mythology that gods and god-like sources aren't meant to be seen by humans in the god or god-like things true form. The human mind can't comprehend it and is often driven mad or destroyed by it. Also in science we have the observer effect, the idea that just by observing something we are fundamentally changing it. I don't think the cave of light has to be either or. We know that the island is a special place where miraculous and inexplicable things happen. That cave of light is the source of all that strangeness.
I find that a satisfying answer. What I don't get is that in "Ab Aterno" which the Lost fan community was nuts for Jacob said pretty much the same thing by referring to the island as a cork. But, I'm starting to go off on a tangent so I'll leave it at that.
I don't quite understand why this episode is being called out as such an affront to all the episodes of Lost that came before it, when it is pretty much following an established Lost formula. Lost has always introduced characters late or at least explained their back stories near finales or when they have already been revealed as being important or unimportant to the plot. Desmond who the Lost fan community loves more than any other element of the show and Ben Linus I think are the best examples of this.
I think if you are willing to accept that the writers decided to devote episodes to Desmond and Ben, then people will come around on this episode too. I think the placement of this episode in the season was important as well because after the bloodbath of the candidate we needed more reliable information about the MIB and we know that we can't trust him as a narrator.
About the treatment of minorities and women in the show: I haven't made my final judgment. Yes black people and women died, but so did a lot of other people. I think the writers tried to balance character and the overall plot of the show and overall some of the characters to get the short end of the stick were women. But I think its telling that one of the most beloved and strongest characters in the show was a woman, Juliet.
And I know people are going to say that she is dead, but so is Charlie. I don't think that a character necessarily has to be alive at the end of the show to be successful. I think it goes back to something I head in the orientation ryan station podcast about sacrifice for something you love being a better fate than a generic happy ending.
Sorry for ranting so long, but I have never posted on this site before, and I really don't feel my point of view was being expressed by the review and some of the comments supporting it. This has been the case on a lot of episodes during this divisive season, but the reaction to this one just made me want to speak up for some reason.

Mo here: Thank you, J.G.! Thanks for the reasoned and thoughtful tone you took with your post -- I TRULY appreciate that you were able to be so rational about it and if we don't 100 percent agree on everything, it's not a problem at all. I do appreciate a calm debate (which some people here in this comment area also appear to be interested in -- thanks to all. No thanks to those who can't resist yelling and screaming.)

phvakil hit the nail on the head. This was an episode that will, in the course of two weeks, be revealed as wonderfully setting up the resolution of a singularly wonderful and intriguing TV experience. I don't presume to know how it will end (and after last night, how can anyone?), but the context in which the Island and Jacob and MIB have been placed will govern the manner as to how the show will end. So many episodes are so wonderful in and of themselves that we the loyal viewers come to expect that all the time, but sometimes transition to a story's arc is necessary in order for context to be, well, context. phvakil's point that mother was a smoke monster (which also explains how she knew precisely the power of the MGC, and how else could she have decimated the village?) and how it is that she could be killed with the Magic Knife, and the importance of not being spoken to, and Jacob's less than clean hands, all form a mythology within which the coming events will play out. We will look back at this episode with gratitude.

And, btw, didn't MIB break the wine bottle in a past episode? And does that mean that, now, no one can drink the magic live-forever potion?

OK now I must also say why I loved this episode (but the part at the end when they flashed to season 1 thinking we were too dumb to understand these were Adam and Eve).

I loved it because it is one of the most intelligent episode they made. This is an episode you have to think about to really understand. First they basically told us, with the magic light thing, that they decided to go with the old Star Wars trilogy approach of the Force. There is the Force, we don't need to know why or how it works (and when we do - we get the crap that is the new trilogy). And, as they said, questions bring other questions which bring other questions. From where did the Mother come ? How did she become the guardian of the island ? Was there someone before her ? And so on. There is no end. And we don't care. The ultimate answer, at the end, would always be "God did it because that's what He wanted". So let's stop at the light.

Then, we have basically a show that shows us that there is no clear cut Good and Bad. The Mother is not the embodiment of goodness. She is crazy, she kills people for no reasons or in order to protect the island even if they mean no harm. And the MIB is the most human of the brothers. I mean, who would not behave like him ? He makes sense and she does not, and Jacob is just a douche.

I also think that the Mother was a Smoke monster, it explains how she destroyed the village and filled the pit. And how she knew that going into the light is worse than death. And why she was so happy to die.

We also see in Jacob/Mother and MIB the Faith vs Science debate. Mother is faith. MIB wants to know, to study, to understand. There is even something meta. On one hand, why would a roman woman name her son Jacob (whose surname is Israel in the Bible), a name used only by Jews at her time (unless she is already christian but we don't know exactly when this happens and even a Christian Roman would not take such a name) ? On the other hand, MIB is played by an actor named Titus, the name of the Roman general who destroyed the Second Temple of Jerusalem.
This is Rome and Jerusalem, the greco-roman philosophy against the prophecies and the revelations.

Whew! Good to know I wasn't the only one who had mixed feelings on this episode. I kept waiting for something to really propel the story forward. One thing I did notice was that the light went out in the "cave" after Jacob "flumed" his brother through there and released the smoke monster, who eventually embodied his brother's likeness, similar to Locke's plight. We still don't know what the SM is truly all about, especially after this hairpin in the works.

I really like your analysis better than others Mo. Your reviews are definitely a tonic compared to EW's Doc Jensen, with his crack addled diatribes that go all over the place and nowhere at the same time.

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